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IV 2xLP

Five years ago, Canada's BADBADNOTGOOD, then a trio, uploaded a shaky black-and-white clip of them playing jazz interpolations of Odd Future songs onto YouTube. (Most prominent among them was raucous rendition of "Orange Juice.") They played the suite for their professors at music school to a chilly reception. Bad grade and all, things turned out well, and they caught the eye of Tyler, the Creator, who became their first supporter, sharing their "Odd Future Sessions" on social media. Just a year later, they uploaded yet another video—Tyler, the Creator running through "Orange Juice" with BBNG as a backing band. The band's technical prowess and smooth sound cushioned Tyler's snarl. Their drummer, Alex Sowinski, is clad in a creepy pig mask, and Tyler stalks around the room with a Colt 45 in hand. Filled with whimsical vulgarity and instrumental pyrotechnics, it was visual candy for college-aged boys.

BBNG was essentially on their way to becoming world's most successful hip-hop jam band. In the last five years, their solo work has focused on a mix of original compositions and covers of famous hip-hop instrumentals. In that way, like the myriad Phish cover bands that flock to our continent's music schools, chops do not compensate for bad taste. Last year, they produced a record with Ghostface Killah, titled Sour Soul, which more or less served as a breakthrough moment for them. (The band sprinted way past Killah with their mercurial speedball pace.) On their fourth record, the succinctly titled IV, they've reined in their jam band impulses, delivering a velvet-crushed portrait of an effervescent lounge act in the 21st century.

They've now added a fourth member, the multi-instrumentalist Leland Whitty, who's been a sideman with the band for years, playing guitar and saxophone. In keeping with BBNG's growing boundaries, they've invited features for the first time. In IV, they managed to rope in Future Islands' Sam Herring, Kaytranada, Colin Stetson, Mick Jenkins, and the Toronto R&B singer Charlotte Day Wilson. And it's in the features that you can get a real sense of how much more flexible and relaxed BBNG have become as a band.

The best of these is Sam Herring's contribution, "Time Moves Slow," where his gravelly voice pairs nicely with the sounds of the Crumar electric organ. It was the first indicator here that BBNG were moving away from their hip-hop roots to a more lounge-y R&B style. This continues in featureless songs like "Chompy's Paradise," which includes an incredibly slinky and plasticine sax solo from Whitty. It recalls all the music from The Pink Panther to "Gilligan's Island"—the sunny attitude of mai-tais by the pool, the elegance of donning an exquisitely crisp trench coat. On the ballad "In Your Eyes," Charlotte Day Wilson strikes a middle-ground between these two dispositions. Her voice generates the murmur of a foggy room draped in cigarette smoke and the clink of martini glasses. But the surrounding instruments around her can air towards the pleasantly goofy, mixing in flute and acoustic guitar, conjuring up images of that infamous scene from Anchorman.

In fact, the jazz flute liberally peppered throughout IV offers large swaths of the music a very special brand of cornball poise. "Speaking Gently," for example, would sound fantastic as theme music for a Vincent Price horror film. "Cashmere" collages together Dave Brubeck-inspired pianos with Bossa Nova percussion, and it's the best example of slacker grace that these guys have been able to cultivate. It's something that would be played in the classier sections of Rob Gronkowski's party cruise.

IV teeters between bland and anonymous fare. The new fusion jazz sounds they've adopted make their weirder tendencies more muted, or at least commiserate. It's hard for BBNG to strike the balance between straight-up beauty and a freewheeling spirit. In the title track, for example, Whitty's frenetic sax work and Matthew Tavares' hyperactive Rhodes piano mashing can feel claustrophobic and luxuriantly cheesy. And there are true missteps that seem like headscratchers on paper, like the features with Kaytranada or Colin Stetson. The composition with Stetson, "Confessions Pt. II," is probably the most disappointing song on IV. It hones in on the disparity between masterful technique and compositional restraint that BBNG has always struggled to balance. Stetson and Whitty's dueling saxophones are skillful without a doubt, but this is the also where the band retreats back to their rote jam band noodling.

BBNG can still be frustrating, but IV is a sign of a band hitting its stride. It's their most jazz-forward album, and it's filled with some markers of magnificent growth. BBNG move between instruments and sounds effortlessly. And they are distinct but generous enough to make vocal guests feel natural in their particular environment: bro sophistication.